A week ago I posted on Zeus Quest: Anagennisis of Gaia, and today I'm happy to announce the winners of 5 free copies that were offered here by the publisher. The following forum members should be hearing from the publisher soon (and if not, feel free to contact me). Congratulations goes to...yawanag, jgrnt1, hubermsdj, timtam, and Magellan!Enjoy the game!

Omnia fever has hit Australia. Bus stops, billboards, newspapers... pick one and there's a good chance an Omnia ad is plastered all over it. Take, for example, an ad in today's paper that caught my eye; it advertised the availability of the Omnia on Optus for a mere $0 on a $49 cap plan. Other carriers such as Vodafone, Virgin Mobile, and 3 are also selling the device on similar plans. And then there are the usual online and brick & mortar stores that sell the device standalone. One thing's for certain: with this widespread availability and constant advertising, Samsung is doing their best to give residents of the country with the highest number of authorized iPhone carriers something else to talk about.

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/...fe-looks-scary/"Edinburgh's own The Medical Phone is just about set to unleash the mobile for the true argonaut in the iCEphone. The Windows Mobile-powered "Swiss Army knife of mobiles" is dubbed a micro-notebook by its manufacturer, and while we're hesitant to go along with that, we can't deny the utility here. Sporting a Jacob's Ladder-style hinge and a full QWERTY keyboard, the unit features three independent panels, a 3-inch 400 x 240 resolution touchscreen, a mouse / tracker pad, dual SIM card slots, HSDPA support, quad-band GSM connectivity, GPS, a 3.1-megapixel camera, WiFi and a 532MHz Freescale iMX31 CPU. We're told that the phone is just weeks / months away from a release in Thailand, and it should be hitting the UK sometime in the March - April time frame for around $1,000."You can't say this isn't an original form factor, I rarely see something this big and somewhat intimidating with Windows Mobile on it (Well, perhaps the Rugged devices are intimidating somewhat). Anyone think they want to sport one of these next year?

"Spb Software releases Spb Wireless Monitor 3.0 - a powerful software solution that offers full control over all types of smartphone data connections by monitoring them in accordance with configurable tariffs and data plans, and providing per application data traffic reports. First brought to market in 2002, Spb Wireless Monitor, formerly known as Spb GPRS Monitor, accounts for the lack of a built-in data tracking tool in Windows Mobile devices. A four-time prize winner in the Smartphone and Pocket PC magazine’s Best Software Awards, shipped in over a dozen devices by ASUS, HTC, O2, Samsung, and T-Mobile, the Spb Wireless Monitor has over 3,000,000 loyal customers worldwide. The new name of version 3.0 comes with massive enhancements in features and abilities. With the growing popularity of mobile Internet and captivating online services - crossing the data plan limits and receiving painful phone bills is common, especially with the high cost of roaming. Spb Wireless Monitor 3.0 prevents unwanted mobile service charges and gives subscribers control over their mobile data spending, by measuring data traffic, calculating the network charges, warning of costly data usage, and reporting which application exactly generates what kind of data traffic. The new Wireless Monitor supports both touch and non-touch screen devices, it can manage CDMA, GPRS, 3G, and even Wi-Fi and USB connections. Spb Wireless Monitor can provide per application traffic and cost reports, allowing users to single out guilty applications, responsible for high data charges. The new version has a modern, multilingual user interface and can manage several connections simultaneously."Spb GPRS Monitor is dead. But, all is not lost, as the new Spb Wireless Monitor 3.0 is now available for all flavours of Windows Mobile. Head over to our affiliate software store (Pocket PC - Professional, Smartphone - Standard) for free trial versions and/or full versions for $19.95. Upgrades from Spb GPRS Monitor 2.0 are $9.95.

http://asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=13428"ASUS today introduced the ASUS P565, a business PDA phone that boasts an 800 MHz processor—the fastest in the world at the time of this announcement. Featuring ASUS’ latest touch-driven user interface—Glide—the stylish, leather-accented P565 delivers graphics and system performance beyond anything else on the market at present, posting Vsbenchmark scores almost two times that of competing products in its class. This enables the P565 to glide through resource-intensive tasks effortlessly and to handle heavy multitasking exceptionally well—making it ideal for businesspeople who demand uncompromising performance and maximum speed from their productivity tools. Rounding off its impressive feature set is a 2.8" touchscreen running at a high resolution of 480 x 640 pixels, delivering an unprecedented degree of clarity that does wonders for both personal photographs and spreadsheets."Most of today's PDA phones aren't all that dissimilar: they try to nail that "touch" experience, and offer similar wireless functionality, similar cameras, similar displays, you name it. So, what does ASUS do to stand out? It goes back to basics and offers something that most of these devices lack: a fast Marvell TavorP 800MHz processor. Admittedly, the leap from the ever so common 624MHz isn't profound, but it's a welcome leap, nonetheless. This Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional device also packs 128MB RAM, 256MB ROM, 3G connectivity, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, GPS (SiRFstar III), a 2.8" VGA touchscreen, a 3.0-megapixel auto-focus camera, and a microSD slot. Not bad at all... oh, except for the rather dismal inclusion of USB 1.1.

About two months ago, I purchased a Canon HF100 high-definition video camera to replace my ageing but still totally sweet Canon GL2 (that thing has such great optics!). It took me a while to re-create my template in 16:9 format, but I did and published my first two HD videos to YouTube...and I was quite disappointed with the results. YouTube only offers a 4:3 aspect ratio player, so 16:9 videos look pretty tiny with those big black bars on the top and bottom. I set out to find a better solution for embedding videos on Thoughts Media sites, and I think I've found one: MotionBox.I say "I think" because while the video quality is utterly fantastic, and for $20 per year they offer a lot of value, I've been seeing some problematic playback issues today - sometimes the video will start right away, other times it will take 30+ seconds before it starts, and sometimes it won't start at all, instead showing a black box. And sometimes it will just "break" and stop playing. These are obviously serious problems, but I don't know if MotionBox is just having a bad day, or if my bandwidth Kung-fu is weak today. So check out the video below and report back what you find - does it play back OK? Any problems or glitches?

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2008/11...-on-the-iphone/"Adobe’s Flash Player is on 98 percent of all desktop computers, but it is still struggling to make the jump to mobile phones. If you want Flash on a mobile device, right now you have to settle for a compromised version: Flash Lite. But Adobe is committed to bring the full Flash Player experience to mobile phones, as evidenced by its Open Screen Project. On Monday, at its Adobe MAX developer conference, it will demonstrate Flash Player 10 running on a Windows Mobile phone. (However, Flash won’t actually ship on Windows Mobile until late next year)."Adobe MAX has come and gone and during that time Adobe has announced that would release Flash technology to the Windows Mobile platform and even demonstrated versions of Flash running on Windows Mobile and Google Android. It is really interesting to see Flash running on Google's Android platform as these handsets are virtually brand spanking new. It is amazing to see how quickly big name companies such as Adobe are jumping on consumer smartphone bandwagon since the release of the Apple iPhone and Google Android platforms. Sometimes I wish Microsoft could inspire that kind of innovation and excitement in the mobile industry. It is an incredibly exciting time to be a smartphone user, no matter which device or operating system is in your pocket. However I am still annoyed that it has taking this long for Adobe to get around to bringing Flash to our handsets.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmob...es/mytopia.mspx"Mytopia is a gaming community filled with high-quality multiplayer games. Available for free and exclusively to Windows Mobile users for a limited time, Mytopia lets you check out the first games that enable live play between smartphones and the web, including popular social networks. Play a game of chess or poker against your buddies on Facebook or MySpace-in real time and right from your phone. Mytopia launches with 8 games: All-in Hold'em, Sudoku Master, Bingo Island, Chess Arena, Lucky Slots, Spades Master, Ace of Hearts, and Vegas Video Poker. Additional games are released every month."I hadn't heard of this game before receiving my Total Access Newsletter today (not getting it? better sign up!), but the graphics look top notch - and who can turn down 30 days of free online gameplay? Definitely worth checking out!

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile...r-mobile-6.aspxRecently the Windows Mobile team blogged a few bits about the upcoming Internet Explorer engine on Windows Mobile devices that will give you close to the full desktop experience on your device, sort of like the iPhone users have had since mid-2007. Microsoft has decided to only make this available on new devices, a factoid only revealed way down in the comments. There will be no upgrades, direct from MS or an OEM, to put this on your fancy new Windows Mobile device. It apparently can't handle it."Regarding making IE Mobile available as a separate download or update, the rich media experiences that IE Mobile 6 enables require more powerful, advanced devices. That is why it will not be available as an upgrade or direct download for current phones, but rather will be made available on new phones."On the one hand, this stinks. On the other, I figured it would be this way anyway. MS rarely ever provides updates to the user directly, instead relying on the OEM partner to dole them out, and the OEM partners tend to offer updates such as this as often as my son picks up his clothes off of the floor voluntarily. At least this way, the OEMs won't take the heat for not providing it, which is I suspect part of the motivation behind it. OEMs are likely to be sick and tired of us users wanting cool new things on the device and calling asking for the updates, either free or for a nominal fee. This way, the OEM can now say MS isn't offering it. Pure speculation on my part of course, but I suspect there is merit to it. Wouldn't have posted it if I didn't think so.

http://www.mobilejaw.com/thoughts/2...-email-accountsFirst of all, let me say that I had no problems with the SMTP patch Microsoft released recently for Windows Mobile 6.1 devices, other than the sudden soft reset that happened without warning. We discussed it here. Fellow MVP Mike Temporale at MobileJaw had a different experience though."A number of news sites have been reporting about Microsoft releasing a patch that fixes an issue with sending email on your Windows Mobile 6.1 device. The patch is available from the Outlook Mobile team web site and claims to fix the problem. I'm sure it might do that, but there are a number of things that they fail to mention. So before you go and install this patch, read the issues below and weigh the decision to install or not."He goes on to mention that email accounts were deleted (pictured above), the device restarted in flight mode and the sudden soft reset. As I said, the soft reset I experienced. I am 99% sure my device didn't come back up in flight mode and I know my 2 POP3 and 1 IMAP4 accounts were all unaffected by the update. Now, I have heard some other issues with the patch as well. Right here in our own forums, some witnessed the deletion of accounts and one said his email functionality was completely broken until the patch was uninstalled. I am interested in hearing the success rates and failures of those that have applied it, as well as how many of you aren't having an issue with email so have held off on applying the patch.

http://msmvps.com/blogs/spiderwebwo...22/1648573.aspx"Since I got my HTC Mogul from Sprint last spring, I had been syncing with two PCs, one at home and one at work. Life was good - I was where I was supposed to be on time, and remembering everyone's birthday and anniversary. "Then the problem began. She upgraded her Mogul to Windows Mobile 6.1 and was no longer able to sync with two PCs. Instead, ActiveSync throws back error 86000107. It works fine with the first PC, but not the second. Microsoft Connect has a more detailed thread about this issue. I don't use ActiveSync (I'm on Vista now with WMDC) and I don't sync with two PCs, so I've not seen this issue. In the Connect thread, the resolution is given as it being an OEM issue that needs to be fixed.If you use ActiveSync and sync with two PCs, have you seen this issue after upgrading to WM6.1? I am wondering if this affects all 6.1 devices or just a few.

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/...d-and-pictured/"Tired of the same 'ole, same 'ole when it comes to Windows Mobile 6.1-based handsets? Yeah, well you probably won't dig the NDrive S400 too much. Sure, it has its own personal charm, but by and large it's fairly predictable. Not that we're kvetching about a 624MHz Marvell PXA310 CPU, 128MB of RAM, quad-band GSM connectivity, HSDPA support, a VGA (640 x 480) display and aGPS, but there's no denying this thing could use a dash of personality. At any rate, we're also informed that it'll arrive with Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, a microSDHC slot, video out, a 1,500mAh battery, accelerometer and an FM radio module, and being just 16.9-millimeters thick with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard isn't too shabby, either. As these things always seem to go, pricing and availability is anyone's guess." This little guy popped up on the Portuguese website, PocketPC.net. Primarily known for it's GPS devices, last year Portuguese-based NDrive released it's first GPS phone, the S300, in Europe, Africa, and South America. The S300 offered WiFi, 2g connectivity, and GPS, but only had 64MB of RAM and was made by their device partner, TechFaith Wireless.Perhaps learning a lesson, the S400 has a beefier 128 RAM and a new manufacturing partner in SIM Technology. As you'll note in the specs below, it also contains 2 processors, both the Marvell PXA310 624Mhz + Qualcomm 6280. In this interesting split, the Marvell seems to be for applications and the Qualcomm for utilizing the HSDPA and GSM. (The MWg UBiQUiO 503G also uses dual processors, including the Qualcomm 6280). Interesting, the Qualcomm MSM6280 Chipset can also support video encoding and decoding, still cameras up to 4 MP, and 2D/3D video support, so the S400 might be distributing some graphics tasks to the Qualcomm for faster performance, especially for something like video telephony. It will be interesting to see the benchmarks once this ships.Ndrive S400 Specification:* OS: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional * CPU: Marvell PXA310 624Mhz + Qualcomm 6280 * Memory: 256 MB ROM / 128 MB Ram * Network: Quad-band GSM/UMTS/HSDPA 7.2MBps * Display: 2.8-inches with VGA (640 x 480) resolution * Camera: 3.0 megapixel with auto focus * GPS: A-GPS * Bluetooth 2.0 * Wi-Fi * MicroSDHC card slot * 1500mAh Battery * Video Out * Accelerometer * FM Radio with RDSIn looking over SIM's website, the picture and specs look a lot like the U1, so it will be interesting to know if NDrive requested anything special for their version. At this point, costs, release dates, and carriers are all unknown, as well as whether North America will ever see one.

http://www.samsungmobilenews.com/20...rizon-wireless/"Verizon Wireless and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile)1 announced the addition of two new phones to Verizon Wireless' robust portfolio of global phones - the Samsung RenownTM and the Samsung SagaTM The Saga is a smartphone that features a 2.55" advanced touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard that provides business professionals with an easy way to send e-mail, text and instant messages. This productivity powerhouse is equipped with Quad Band GSM/GPRS capability, an optical mouse, Wi-Fi access (802.11 b/g), Opera mobile browser and Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional to keep customers connected to their offices when they are at home and abroad."Hopefully the Saga won't simply "be a a medieval Icelandic or Norse prose narrative of achievements and events in the history of a personage, family, etc" but will be an honest to goodness Windows Mobile device that brings some options to those on VZW. Opera is getting bundled more and more these days, and for good reason. Now if VZW can simply find a way to charge by the keypress, they'd be all set.

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/pho...es/HTC-Fuze.htm"Some of us have been waiting months for this phone to hit the US, and it's a formidable successor to the HTC Tilt. In terms of looks and size, it's a flat out winner. Though thicker than QWERTY bar phones, its relatively small width and height mean it does feel overly large. The Fuze is feature-packed and call quality is good. But AT&T's heavy-handed branding, complete with a host of non-removable demo and subscription-ware make the phone seem less clean and responsive than the Sprint version. We'd like to sit down for a serious talk with the person who designed that annoying PTT button-- even if we intended to use that service, we wouldn't want to accidentally launch it nearly every time we handle the phone. On the upside, the Fuze has a superb VGA display, the second best web browser after the iPhone's Safari, and can handle all manner of syncing and email."There's plenty to love about the AT&T Fuze, but according to MobileTechReview, the bloatware is a letdown. If you just picked up a Fuze, how are you finding it? Would you agree with MTR's assessment?

The seventh and final of our 8th anniversary contests is now over: the winner of the one week vacation stay, selected randomly from amongst all the entries, is makicr. Congratulations! Thanks to everyone that entered this contest, and all of the other contests. It was a lot of fun to give away so many devices! Special thanks to PPC Techs for their prize donation, and to all of the companies who allowed me to give away devices that I'd been holding on to for a while. I hope all the winners enjoy their devices, and all of you enjoyed the contests. Thanks for supporting Pocket PC Thoughts!

http://www.pharosgps.com/buzz/buzz_...eler117_127.pdf"Pharos introduced two new GPS smartphones that offer full-featured navigation and lightning-fast 3.5G connectivity on an unlocked, Windows Mobile handset. The Pharos Traveler 117 and 127 are Pharos' first phones to include Pharos Smart Navigator, a unique hybrid navigation product that is the first to combine navigation software + location services on a Windows Mobile device"I've long been a fan of Pharos Ostia GPS package, and their new hybrid phones that include the Smart Navigator component look pretty nice. Pharos has been at this phone thing now for a year or two - anyone out there have one or have an opinion on one?

Being so heavily Windows Mobile-centric, I find it interesting when I can get my hands on devices from companies that compete with Windows Mobile. I had an opportunity to play with a RIM Blackberry Bold earlier this week, and was extremely impressed with the hardware. I thought it might be useful to share what I thought was good about the Bold, if for no other reason than to point out to anyone from Microsoft, HTC, etc. reading this site that Windows Mobile devices are lacking somewhat in the area that the Bold inhabits.The 2.66 inch, 320 x 480 screen was simply gorgeous - very crisp, with great contrast. It made everything look excellent - I think the Blackberry OS, for all its faults, gets many things right on the home screen - the indicator icons on Windows Mobile are huge in comparison, so even by making them smaller, things look sharper and more organized on the Blackberry home screen. The keyboard felt really good, although I thought the width of the device was a bit much - it's closer to the Motorola Q9h in width, while I prefer the more slender Blackjack II. Not a deal-breaker though, I'd put up with the extra width to get that screen. Device thickness and weight were reasonable.Performance was very snappy - apps just flew, screens appeared and vanished quickly. I've always felt that other Blackberry models had a nice home screen, but looked like pagers once you dug a layer deeper, but the Bold has a pretty good second level as well. Video playback was very impressive as well - there was a Speed Racer sample clip that looked amazing, the best I've seen on a mobile device in a long time. The media player software was pretty weak though - it was a combination of VCR-like buttons and a DOS-like directory listing of videos. I'm spoiled by how fun and easy media browsing is on my Zune, and everything else pales in comparison. I could only sigh as I heard my friend explain that he leaves WiFi turned on all the time, and still gets 2-3 days of heavy use out of it, because the WiFi is smart enough to stay in a super low power mode until it detects he comes home, then it connects WiFi and uses that rather than 3G. When he leaves the house, it seamlessly moves back to 3G. Now that's smart software! There were certainly parts of the software that screamed "I used to be wireless pager software!", but RIM has done a pretty good job sprucing up the look and feel of the operating system.Oh yeah, it didn't have a high-gloss back that attracted smudges (are you listening HTC?). It really is a great hardware design. I'm sure if I spent a week using it I'd see more flaws in the software and hardware, but I have to say that as first impressions go, the Bold makes a good one - and first impressions are generally what sell phones to the public. I can't think of any Windows Mobile device that comes close to matching the Bold in terms of hardware, and that's really unfortunate.I'm convinced that HTC in particular is so fixated on beating Apple in the touch game, that even though they don't have a great touch-friendly operating system to work with (Windows Mobile Professional is still far too stylus-based), they're ignoring the popular consumer market that RIM is making big inroads into now. When I hear a 25-year old female friend gush about how much she loves her new Blackberry Curve, a device I'd always perceived as a business device, I know there's a missing piece in Microsoft's consumer strategy - a very big piece. RIM has somehow pivoted with their product strategy just enough to allow the carriers to heavily promote Blackberry devices as being consumer devices, and based mostly on nice hardware design, consumers are buying Blackberry devices in big numbers. Microsoft and their hardware partners have to come up with a solution to this problem - and a good start would be a device that competes head-on with the Blackberry Bold and wins.Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He has a thing for high-resolution screens.

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/pho...C-Touch-Pro.htm"The HTC Touch Pro is undeniably one of the hottest PDA phones of 2008. And in the US, just as with the HTC Touch Diamond, Sprint customers get to sample it first. Previously available only as a GSM import with no US 3G, the Sprint version is the first carrier-branded Touch Pro. Rumor has it that AT&T will launch their version soon as the Fuze, and Verizon will have a version with a slower CPU and less memory (again, these are just rumors as of this writing). What is the Touch Pro? It's the keyboard-ed version of the Diamond, and it's light years ahead of the Mogul on Sprint or the Tilt on AT&T. It's smaller, more modern looking, has a flush VGA touch screen display and all the bells and whistles you'd expect on a flagship smartphone. Specs include Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, a 528MHz CPU, 288 megs of RAM and 512 megs of flash storage, an SDHC microSD card slot, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and a 3.2 megapixel camera. For messaging and content creation types, the most salient feature is the Touch Pro's slide--out QWERTY keyboard."The Touch Pro is getting quite a lot of attention as of late. With the review quoted above and another at 4WinMobile, it is interesting to see it getting some very high marks from reviewers around the world. I'm certainly interested in it as well as the Omnia - what about you?

http://209.85.171.104/translate_c?h...JWaaQuoMwQT8wmg"While the arrival of Windows Mobile 6.5 for the year 2009 was announced here and there, then confirmed by Steve Balmer himself at the PDC 2008, Smartphone France is very pleased to present exclusive World 2 first screenshots of what should be Windows Mobile 6.5. If for the moment there is no real information on the new version of Windows Mobile, what is happening is that Microsoft has finally decided to redesign the interface of the aging systems to try to catch up with his lags behind its competitors." While the above screenshots are fun to look at I highly doubt these are official screenshots from Windows Mobile 6.5. For starters a large majority of the icons look awfully jagged, as if someone did a horrible job cutting them up in Photoshop. Secondly, these so called screenshots barely resemble anything graphically relevant to what is currently released, or soon to be released, by Microsoft. Over the past few years we have seen Microsoft start to make graphical tweaks and changes throughout its product line to bring their products closer together in likeness - not... this. This looks like someone’s attempt at making a homescreen, or at least mocking one up in Photoshop. The above images are nowhere near the quality of a product created by a company with billions of dollars at their disposal. Sure we can say the same about the previous versions of Windows Mobile, but the very reason we heard that Microsoft is releasing Windows Mobile 6.5 is because they understand as far as design goes they are nowhere up to par with the competition. Knowing that, I have faith that Microsoft will put together something that is pleasing to the eye and doesn't look like something thrown together by some kid in his bedroom over the weekend. Then again, I could be wrong. What do you guys think?

http://209.85.171.104/translate_c?h...JWaaQuoMwQT8wmg"While the arrival of Windows Mobile 6.5 for the year 2009 was announced here and there, then confirmed by Steve Balmer himself at the PDC 2008, Smartphone France is very pleased to present exclusive World 2 first screenshots of what should be Windows Mobile 6.5. If for the moment there is no real information on the new version of Windows Mobile, what is happening is that Microsoft has finally decided to redesign the interface of the aging systems to try to catch up with his lags behind its competitors." While the above screenshots are fun to look at I highly doubt these are official screenshots from Windows Mobile 6.5. For starters a large majority of the icons look awfully jagged, as if someone did a horrible job cutting them up in Photoshop. Secondly, these so called screenshots barely resemble anything graphically relevant to what is currently released, or soon to be released, by Microsoft. Over the past few years we have seen Microsoft start to make graphical tweaks and changes throughout its product line to bring their products closer together in likeness - not... this. This looks like someone’s attempt at making a homescreen, or at least mocking one up in Photoshop. The above images are nowhere near the quality of a product created by a company with billions of dollars at their disposal. Sure we can say the same about the previous versions of Windows Mobile, but the very reason we heard that Microsoft is releasing Windows Mobile 6.5 is because they understand as far as design goes they are nowhere up to par with the competition. Knowing that, I have faith that Microsoft will put together something that is pleasing to the eye and doesn't look like something thrown together by some kid in his bedroom over the weekend. Then again, I could be wrong. What do you guys think?